Related papers: Where have all the grasshoppers gone?
We begin by revisiting a paper of Erd\H{o}s and Fishburn, which posed the following question: given $k\in \mathbb{N}$, what is the maximum number of points in a plane that determine at most $k$ distinct distances, and can such optimal…
Given a set $P$ of $n$ points with their pairwise distances, the traveling salesman problem (TSP) asks for a shortest tour that visits each point exactly once. A TSP instance is rectilinear when the points lie in the plane and the distance…
This paper poses a question about a simple localization problem. The question is if an {\em oblivious} walker on a line-segment can localize the middle point of the line-segment in {\em finite} steps observing the direction (i.e., Left or…
We illustrate how to invite and excite students about research by exploring higher-dimensional generalizations of the classical egg drop problem, in which the goal is to locate a critical breaking point using the fewest number of trials.…
Traditionally, the P3P problem is solved by firstly transforming its 3 quadratic equations into a quartic one, then by locating the roots of the resulting quartic equation and verifying whether a root does really correspond to a true…
Consider non-intersecting Brownian motions on the line leaving from the origin and forced to two arbitrary points. Letting the number of Brownian particles tend to infinity, and upon rescaling, there is a point of bifurcation, where the…
The burning process on a graph $G$ starts with a single burnt vertex, and at each subsequent step, burns the neighbors of the currently burnt vertices, as well as one other unburnt vertex. The burning number of $G$ is the smallest number of…
Consider branching Brownian motion in which we begin with one particle at the origin, particles independently move according to Brownian motion, and particles split into two at rate one. It is well-known that the right-most particle at time…
Given a symmetric convex body $C$ and $n$ hyperplanes in an Euclidean space, there is a translate of a multiple of $C$, at least ${1\over n+1}$ times as large, inside $C$, whose interior does not meet any of the hyperplanes. The result…
Collective motion is abundant in nature, producing a vast amount of phenomena which have been studied in recent years, including the landing of flocks of birds. We investigate the collective decision making scenario where a flock of birds…
The general position problem is to find the cardinality of a largest vertex subset S such that no triple of vertices of S lie on a common geodesic. For a connected graph G, the cardinality of S is denoted by gp(G) and called gp-number (or…
Dirac and Motzkin conjectured that any set X of $n$ non-collinear points in the plane has an element incident with at least $\lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil$ lines spanned by X. In this paper we prove that any set X of $n$ non-collinear points in…
To any two-dimensional rational plane in four-dimensional space one can naturally attach a point in the Grassmannian Gr(2,4) and four lattices of rank two. Here, the first two lattices originate from the plane and its orthogonal complement…
A simple symmetric random walk is considered on a spider that is a collection of half lines (we call them legs) joined at the origin. We establish a strong approximation of this random walk by the so-called Brownian spider. Transition…
A set of $n$ points in the Euclidean plane determines at least $n$ distinct lines unless these $n$ points are collinear. In 2006, Chen and Chv\'atal asked whether the same statement holds true in general metric spaces, where the line…
Given a set $P$ of $n$ points in the plane, in general position, denote by $N_\Delta(P)$ the number of empty triangles with vertices in $P$. In this paper we investigate by how much $N_\Delta(P)$ changes if a point $x$ is removed from $P$.…
An ordinary plane of a finite set of points in real 3-space with no three collinear is a plane intersecting the set in exactly three points. We prove a structure theorem for sets of points spanning few ordinary planes. Our proof relies on…
We bound the time it takes for a group of birds to reach steady state in a standard flocking model. We prove that (i) within single exponential time fragmentation ceases and each bird settles on a fixed flying direction; (ii) the flocking…
After a grasp has been planned, if the object orientation changes, the initial grasp may not have to be modified to accommodate the orientation change. For example, rotation of a cylinder by any amount around its centerline does not change…
A centipede made of $N$ quantum walkers on a one-dimensional lattice is considered. The distance between two consecutive legs is either one or two lattice spacings, and a global constraint is imposed: the maximal distance between the first…